The living room TV

[Highway Star]

Is out of commission. A friend of one of my children threw a Wii remote at my TV. The outer screen is completely intact, but the inner screen, I guess the actual LCD guts of the set, is cracked. Unless it is on, you can't tell that anything is wrong with it. The inner piece has a 5" spidered vrack in it, right at little kid level, and the colors are all blotched and messed up.

Turns out that the kid had never spent the night anywhere before, and woke up a number of times early in the morning...like 4 or 5 am. My older son heard him awake one of the times. Anyways, he tried to go play Wii, and couldn't turn it on, so he chucked the controller (with rubber guard on it) at the TV. He had to hurl it pretty good to crack the inside of the TV. there isn't a doubt in my mind that this is exactly what happened...after careful consideration.

I asked all the kids together what happened...nobody knew anything. I didn't play detective or use any parental divide and conquer tactics or anything like that, just asked a few questions.


I toiled over whether or not we should even tell the parents. I ultimately feel like since it is MY house, MY tv, and MY problem to make sure it is supervised, it is MY problem, too.


I couldn't get over what would happen if the kid told his parents that I asked him if he broke our TV. Kids have a tendency to be pretty direct, and sometimes I operate on considering "worst case" scenarios.
I would be pretty displeased if one of my kids came home and told me something like that, so it convicted me to tell the dad when he came to pick up his son from spending the night.

I don't have the $ for a new Full1080p LCD flatscreen HDTV. Nobody will touch it for repair, not even the manufacturer.

I told the people that due to ALL of the circumstances, I refuse to hold them responsible, in any way, to any extent, for their son's actions...considering that when it happened, I was asleep under the very same roof.


This sucks, huh?